Longing
by Ampersand Ellipsis
Summary: Booth stands up on the catwalk, looking down at the team as the newest set of remains is brought in. My first entry for the NJC July.


**A/N: FABULOUS idea Jemb and Niah to start another challenge! I tend to leap from passion to passion and just can't write unless something really strikes me, so it's fun to have even more inspiration. This song is GREAT and the idea flashed right into my head from the first line. By the time I'd finished listening to this song for the second time, this fic was written.**

**The first thing I felt as I listened to this song was longing, the kind of sweet melancholy that comes from replacing something you love with something you love more. Reflecting on this transition, you're hopeful for what's up ahead and you know that it's time to change and move on, but you will miss what's gone and smile whenever it drifts back through your mind.**

**Hope you like it!**

X-X-X

Seeley Booth stalked into Temperance Brennan's office.

"Bones!" he yelled. "Where are you? We've got a case." He looked around the room and realized she wasn't there. "Maybe they're upstairs having a meeting," he muttered to himself as he headed for the stairs up to the catwalk and lounge area.

By the time he got up there, members of his FBI team were bringing in the remains on a stretcher and the squints were gathering around it quickly.

"Why can't they just be where I want them to be?" Booth thought grumpily. He paused for a moment and leaned against the railing, watching them move in their routine way, their actions choreographed and practiced over time to precision.

_Come sit with your angels and give us some time  
Forgive us this fragile frame of mind _

My mom always called those around us who watched over us and made our lives better our "angels," he thought. She and her friends used to get together every spring in our back yard, talking and laughing. Jared and I used to love running around them, in and out of their chairs, feeling the love they had for each other, until it got dark and dad would call us in to bed. Mom and her friends would stay up most of the night, the tea lamps glowing softly in the garden. She used to call it, "Sitting among the angels."

It's been a lifetime since those days, he sighed, but every spring when the cherry blossoms bloom in D.C., I'm a little kid again, rolling down the grassy hills, snatching cookies from grandma's china plates and slurping down cold lemonade, feeling safe and happy.

_It's all right,   
But it's difficult changes for each in our turn  
'cause baby your angels never learned,  
no we never learned…_

Booth frowned down at the lab below him. No matter how hard I tried to keep things the same, they keep changing. I remember the first time Bones wanted to come out into the field with me, he said to himself. At first I didn't think it would mean anything, but she kept getting into dangerous situations that I couldn't promise to protect her from anymore. And then I found myself being more and more concerned about her safety, her happiness and her heart.

Hodgins and Zach keep trying to talk to me about their love lives. While Zach just never seemed to progress in that area, Hodgins nabbed Angela and I suddenly found myself standing at the altar with Bones, acting as Best Man to her Maid of Honor.

I'd never admit this to another soul, he reflected, but I feel that same love I had in the backyard each spring sometimes in the lab with the squints. They're all doing their things and I'm standing there watching, enjoying the love they have for their work. I will never forget all of the squints sitting around, right here in fact, raising their hands to show their support of me. I guess they really are _my_ squints.

_Rain is gonna come down  
Change is gonna come 'round._

_We're given these moments,  
We're given this time,  
We do what we must just to get by just to stay high and dry  
And as sure as these blue skies they're gonna turn gray  
_

Now Zach is off to the Middle East and I actually find myself worried about him. I told him that when someone shoots at you that your body ducks whether you want it to or not, but for him I don't thing that's the truth. He annoys the crap out of me, but I don't want to attend his funeral. 

_You've given your angels all of your days  
but you can't stay…_

And soon I'll go back to my office. Again. And they all get to stay here together, like mom and her friends out back. It seems the cases are solved too quickly these days. It's like I walk into the Jeffersonian and then I find myself back in my car, missing the squints, wanting to be there in the middle of them—

"Booth!" Brennan's voice breaks his reverie. "What are you doing up there? Are you going to come down here and tell us what this is?"

Booth took a moment to look at the faces he'd come to love staring up at him: Bones, her hands on her hips, an impatient look on her face; Cam, a small smile on her lips like she knows exactly what he's been thinking; Hodgins, his hands paused over the skeleton, holding clothing remains; Zach, bent over the table, the small bone he'd been examining momentarily forgotten; Angela, sketch pad in hand, an eyebrow quirked.

"Yeah, Bones, yeah. I'm coming," he yelled back. Immediately the action below him resumed, each participant once again taking their place in their dance of efficiency.

Booth grinned widely at the scene below him. I may not be able to keep everything the same, he thought, but at least I can enjoy it…and them…while it lasts.

X-X-X

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